Bar Review: BQ Birra Artigianale di Qualità

This is a special beer review because I will be reviewing a beer bar instead of just beer! I'm hoping to add more reviews of establishments that I visit for future beer review posts. I was in Milan last month with my wife and one night after a long day of sightseeing I wanted to check out a local beer bar and BQ Birra Artigianale di Qualita seemed like a great choice. There are five different locations in Milan, Italy and I decided to go to the one at Via Losanna 36 because it was closest to my hotel and with 24 taps and 200 different bottles it had the largest selection.

We got there early by Italian standards at a bit after 7p.m. and no one was in the bar besides two people working there. Neither of them were able to speak English and since neither of us could speak Italian our communication was limited but the waitress was extremely accommodating in translating and explaining beer and food to us using her smartphone. Most of their draft beers were 5 euro for 40cl which I felt was reasonably priced. I ordered a blue cheese burger with mushrooms and onions on it for 9 euro and my wife ordered a plate of fries for 3.50. There weren't many vegetarian options on the menu for her. We ordered a couple of draft beers to enjoy while we waited for the food. The beer was delicious and the room was filled with rock and pop hits of the last several decades.

I was slightly intimidated by the size of my burger when it arrived! I was a little hesitant to even order a burger in the first place because I often feel burgers are something that most restaurants outside of the U.S. don't really know how to do. I couldn't have been more wrong in this case. The beef was fresh and it combined overwhelmingly well with the messy wonder of blue cheese, mushrooms, and onions. It was hard to bite it because it was so big but it was definitely worth the struggle! I tried a couple of my wife's fries and they were also really good.

We ordered another 40cl beer and a tasting tray. The tasting tray was 4 euro for 3 glasses of 10cl beer but all of the beers we received had way more than 10cl possibly because they were served in 25cl glasses. We talked and savored our drinks. One aspect of the bar which was interesting was that some of their beers were named after famous people from history such as Genghis Khan, Tutankhamon, Cleopatra, and Attila. There were some other interesting names such as Gasoline Super and Mahogany. The bottle selection was fairly impressive with beers from Italy, Germany, Belgium, the U.K., and the U.S. I think there is something here to interest any beer lover.

During the course of our time there a few people showed up and left but overall it was pretty empty the whole time. It isn't a very large bar and I'm not sure if it could hold much more than 50 people. I had a great time and I would definitely recommend stopping by one of the BQ bars if you are ever in Milan!

Overall: 9/10I apologize that I didn't take notes about the specific beers I tried but I can tell you I liked everyone of the BQ drafts I tried - Mahogany, Zingibeer, Valchiria (which was my favorite), Cleopatra, Gasoline Super, and Genghis Khan.